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Saturday, November 17, 2007

Gingerbread for Voyages or Travelling.

There are so many gingerbread recipes now in the Through the Ages with Gingerbread archive that it is getting to be quite a challenge to find variations with a different spin. This one seems to meet the challenge.

It is a fruity version with almonds which is twice-baked in the manner of biscotti, making it suitable to take on long seafaring voyages.

Gingerbread for Voyages or Travelling.Three pounds of treacle, four pounds of flour, half a pound of sugar, both well sifted, two ounces of pounded ginger, a quarter of an ounce of allspice, a quarter of a pound of orange-peel, two ounces of caraway-seeds, a quarter of a pound of citron, a quarter of a pound of almonds, a pound of butter; let the almonds be blanched and cut with the citron and orange-peel; it ought not to be much handled, but well mixed ; bake it in small cakes or nuts; give it a quick oven.This bread, baked with the fruit pounded, is to be very well dried in a cool oven, and then to be rasped, and again kneaded, with as much butter and treacle as it will take ; knead up with more fruit and spices; bake it well, without burning; dip it in spirits of wine, with a few drops of the essence of caraway, cinnamon, or cloves; dry it in the oven; wash it over with isinglass and sugar, or white of egg ; dry it again, and wrap it up in writing- paper very close ; pack it in a lined box, exclude the air, and it will keep years in a dry, but not warm place. This is excellent for sea store.[Domestic economy, and cookery, for rich and poor, by a lady; London; 1827]